Highland Brewing celebrates National Parks tonight

You might have heard, the National Park Service turns 100 years old today. Anyone turning 100 deserves a toast!

So use that as your excuse to head to Highland Brewing Co. today, that’s Thursday, Aug. 25.

The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation and Highland will toast the Park Service centennial anniversary from 4-8 p.m. with the release of a special beer, Cranberry Ridge Wheat, named for the ridge at Milepost 452.1 on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Haywood County.

If you’re driving the parkway, it’s about 70 miles southwest of Asheville. But you can cut off some time by heading out I-40 West to Exit 27 and continuing west on U.S. 74 to the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance in Balsam.

Tonight’s party at Highland is one of 17 birthday parties in the "Find Your Pint" series hosted at Asheville area breweries during August and September.

Rangers from the Blue Ridge Parkway will give talks about the history of the National Park Service, and $1 per pint of the special beer will go to the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, the primary, non-profit fundraiser for the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Foundation will receive a portion of all sales in August.

The series of events includes a passport program encouraging beer fans to visit each brewery on its event date to collect Parkway Beer Passport stickers. The booklets will be available at participating breweries and Appalachian Vintner in Asheville.

Passport holders can register online to win tickets to a V.I.P. event at New Belgium Brewing. Beer fans are encouraged to use #FindYourPint in social media posts and tag the breweries and Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation to spread the word.

The National Park Service was created on Aug. 25, 1916, to protect the 35 existing parks and monuments and those yet to be created. Today, the National Park Service manages 411 parks, park units, monuments, and more.

The Conservation Fund and the National Park Service held a celebration Tuesday Aug. 23, 2016 to commemorate the National Park Service's centennial and the protection of lands surrounding Waterrock Knob, the scenic destination at Milepost 451.2 ofn the Blue Ridge Parkway.(Photo: Maddy Jones/mjones@citizen-times.com)